"With those who do not give a damn about baseball, I can only sympathize. I do not resent them. I am even willing to concede that many of them are physically clean, good to their mothers, and in favor of world peace. But while the game is on, I can't think of anything to say to them."

I am flying pretty low to the ground today after a outstanding night at the Manny's. I love black tie affairs. I managed to keep my hat off for the entirety of the ceremony, but when it was over, I had my calling card right back atop my head.

Not only was I in formal gear all night (a CYC rarity), but I also sang karaoke. A lot. Which is almost a CYC impossibility. And when I realized that watching the dvr-ed game was not going to be in the cards, I checked the score of the game.

And saw with pleasure the drubbing.

(Ha, I just realized how bizarre that sentence just sounded.)

Yanks won 15-3 last night and the best about checking the scores on the blackberry was the bluntness and unbiased directness of seeing Ohman finish off the interminable 5th inning.

Ohman. If your name is going to be OH MAN, then you have to work damn hard to make sure you stay off the grid, and out of negative limelight. Like what this guy did.

So after what seems like a 230-game series with the Southsiders comprised of run tallies that you could easily tick off on one hand, the Yanks basically exploded in the 5th inning. Actually, I thought initially I was just bleary eyed from crazy lighting design of the banquet hall, because all of a sudden the game went from 2-0 to 8-0.

And how did this all happen? It began with a homerun from Gardner.

I'm sorry, but why is no one making a bigger deal out of this??? Brett Gardner has hit like .02 homeruns in his life, and in the past week he's hit about 49. I guess this exercise in weirdness (can I even call it weird anymore? It's the norm now?) sparked the Yanks into some kind of "Well, if GGBG is going yard, it'll basically just be embarrassing if we don't" mentality.

So there's your 5th inning. NINE Yanks batted before anyone even recorded an out. (Awkward for the 1st out batter. But since it was GGBG, who had hit a bomb 8 batters ago, it was ok. But it wasn't ok for Swish, who said he was getting teased on account of even the small fry knocking one out.)

Swisher broke his 75-AB homerun drought. I don't know why this stat bothers me, but it does for some reason.

It's like, when ARod is chasing a milestone, it's normal for him to salivate over the idea of taking the pitcher deep. He's our clean-up guy. It's expected.

When Jeter is in a slump, it's natural for him to long for just any kind of base hit. He's our lead off guy. It's expected.

But Swish getting his panties in an uproar over not going yard? Come on. I don't necessarily want bombs from him. I just want him to get on base. It would've made more sense if Swish was pissed about an 0-for-75 no base-on-balls slump.

I feel like Swish overswings when he's frustrated, so all the more reason for him to pay no mind to keeping the ball in the park. I like you, Swish. You're the fine the way you are, you don't need a homerun.

2 days after Sterling confidently asserted that Konerko doesn't make any mistakes, there's this:

"It's been a bad couple of weeks. It's been bad up to this point as a whole this season, but that doesn't mean tomorrow has to be [the same way]. It's way too early to get discouraged or to say, 'OK, this is the team for the season.'"

Ouch. How'd your team feel about that one, a-hole?? That was a mistake.

Jeter got a planned day off, and his replacement got confused about things. In other words, Nunez had 2 errors. That sucks, I feel bad for him. A nice a fielding mistake to start the game--good work--and then just when we were all forgetting about that little snafu, he goes and throws to God knows who, sailing one to like the right field bleachers or something, and then this leads to 3 unearned runs.

That was sloppy. But the sloptasticity reached its pinnacle when Fatso balked. I love Tubbo so much that he literally cannot do any wrong by me. I even love his balks! He dropped the ball. I mean, he actually just dropped the ball.

You know why? Because his hands were greasy from MickeyD's. No, I don't know why. But that's what would make sense. Explains why he's CONSTANTLY wiping his palms down like a porker killing a bags of Lays. Yeah. I don't know.

It was such a weird game. Despite the 5th inning where time ceased to move, the game wrapped up in 3 hours. Errors, homeruns, low scoring game, high scoring one. This game had everything!

Except an Ozzie ejection. Sigh.

(Thanks to Strange for waking me up this morning with this facebook post: Guillen has been ejected 26 times, including three times at Yankee Stadium since 2007. ‘‘I get kicked out of the game a lot here in New York. I got to check that record. ‘‘I wonder why.’’ On the plus side, Guillen joked, he has a nice office at Yankee Stadium and the food is good.)

In the top of the 1st, in the TOP OF THE 1ST (bears repeating), he just lost it Ozzie style when Konerko was called out on a called 3rd strike that barely hovered around the knees. Yeah I suppose it was kind of a bad call, MAYBE. I mean, you got 2 strikes on you, swing at that. Ask Carlos Beltran about that, if it's even remotely close, you swing. This isn't groundbreaking theory.

Actually, few things WOULD merit the tantrum Ozzie threw. Maybe getting kicked in the face with golf shoes. And even that would have had to have happened in the 9th inning for me to really give a crap.

But Ozzie cares deeply about everything. I love him. My sister: "Imagine being stuck in a room with AJ Piernyzski and Ozzie. Forever."

I don't think I would mind that. Well, not forever, but I can think of a million worse people, 90% of which are on the Red Sux or were on the Red Sux at one point.

So the first inning comes and goes, Ozzie storms back to the clubhouse, where he may as well get his mail delivered since he spends more time there than he does on the field. And he proceeds to do what any ejected manager does after retreating away from the game with his tail between his legs:

He tweets aggressively.

I get THE BIGGEST kick out of aggressive status-updaters. Like how when 14-year-old girls get slighted by something, the first thing they do is bang away on their iPhones these thinly veiled spits of vitriol like, "I'm glad I found out NOW who my real friends are" or something like that.

Similarly, Ozzie channels that maturity with things like:

"This one going to cost me a lot money"

"This is patetic [sic]."

"Today a tough guy show up a yankee stadium"

Which isn't much of a departure from his typical rhetoric, awesomely. His tweet archives include, but are not limited to, pearls of insight like:

"3 day of Spring Training and im already boreddddddd"

"what I saw on the field today was a lot of grass..."

"Thanks a lot for the support i like it the twitter....."

See, this is one guy that I actually LIKE weighing in on everything. Shut it down, Schilling, you've been long replaced as the outspoken mouth of MLB.

So, yeah, the game. Cano homered with something that initially looked like it'd be a line drive into right center. The thing took off like an f'n bullet, ridiculous. He's gone yard in 4 of the past 5 games. As Ted Williams once said, "I'm good, and I'm only getting better. I can't stand it I'm so good."

That's how Cano plays and hits. He even toed the line of obnoxious pause-at-the-plate-after-dropping-the-bat behavior that WoManRam had taken to galactic levels during his tenure, BUT Cano only neared the border of obnoxious. His appreciative gaze of his bomb still fell somewhere in between badass and arrogant which, of course, is the perfect place to fall!

The Allergy, as I mentioned, also was badass, if not enormously anaphylactic-y. And according to Ozzie, we should all be impressed not only with his outing but with his attendance:

Before the game, Chicago manager Ozzie Guillen joked that he was surprised to learn Colon had showed up at the ballpark -- a reference to Colon's injury-plagued 2009 stint with the White Sox during which he was away from the team for long stretches and sometimes hard to find, Guillen said.

Pshh, bitch please. You're talking about a team that hosted the likes of Carl Pavano and Kei Igawa.

Buerhle--whose name I STILL can't master--delivered the David Cone special and continued to live up to his end of the bargain he clearly made with Beezelbub prior to July 23, 2009, giving up 6 hits and polishing his record to 1-8, with a 6.38 ERA against the Yanks.

(I liked the little side bar piece about the pitchers with the highest ERAs against the Yanks. Because Josh Beckett was like #2 or something. Ha. Put that in your goatee and smoke it.)

Mo got the save, staving off the requisite whining from critics about his damn age (which, for the record, seems to have been reduced by about 20 years, based on his appearance.) Seriously, was it me, or did Mo look like his rookie card last night?

I left work last night at around 11:30, so I'm standing outside the Channel 11 News Building, trying to decide whether I should cab it because it's late and I'm cranky, or whether I should enjoy the first real night of balmy spring weather and walk to Grand Central. Amidst these musings, I see out of the corner of my eye the largest head in the world that could only belong to one person and one person only.

Oh, Michael Kay!

Why, in God's name, are you randomly standing outside the News Building as the hours creep up on midnight?

But can anyone ever really understand the inner trappings of a mind like Michael Kay's? No.

HOWEVAH, player of the day is coworker Joe K, for his outstanding "What You Should Have Done" comment.

When I see Joe this morning and I'm yawning, etc and we exchange the "late night at the office" commisseries (is that a word? Bowno.)... I tell him about the KaySighting, he's confused (justly so).

"What? What was he doing there?"

"I don't know, I didn't ask him. I didn't talk to him. I briefly considered asking him to give me a ride home though."

"You should have just walked right him while you were leaving and just said 'SEE YA!'"

Gold.

Well-played, Joe. And bad knowledge, CYC on not rolling out the prime line.

Moving on.

The Yanks lose again, in somewhat familiar fashion. Very much like the 2-0 not-no-hitter game on the night prior. Except this time they had more hits. And this time it wasn't a no-name they were handing the W over to, but rather, Gavid Floyd, who really pitched quite a gem.

He struck out 10 and only gave up 3 hits before Jeter singles in the 9th, and Ozzie brings in Matt Thornton, and man I hate missing the tv broadcast of ANY Yank game, but ESPECIALLY when they're playing the White Sox. Just because I love seeing--as Strange hilariously pointed out--the Ozzie Guillen call to the bullpen that looks like how an obese slob would signal over to his waiter that he wants the all-you-can-eat ribs to keep on comin'.

So after Grandy sacs Jeter over to 2nd, and Tex works a walk, we get treated to the 2nd helping of Ozzie's bullpen calling, as he brings in Santos for the final 2 outs.

According to Sterling, Arod's shot was just INCHES away from winning the game. This could be true, but there's just as good a chance that Arod weakly grounded to third. Same goes for Cano's roped liner that followed. Could have tied the game, or it could have just been a strike-out. You never really know when you rely on the Sterling broadcast.

However, both calls were corroborated this morning, and the brilliance of Lillibridge's game saving plays were also substantiated.

So, even though the Yanks didn't lose to a Phillip Humber again, they lost to someone of equal stature in the MLB community:

Then, just to really drive home the point that Lillibridge is a utility infielder who's gonna prove his worth off the bench if it's the last thing he does, dammit.. there's this one, too.

Good work, Lillibridge. I'm impressed. Must have had the lucky feather with you, after all.Soriano screwed up this game for me and the Crisis Nerviosas, by giving up a game-winning bomb to Konerko, about whom Sterling made the following somewhat lofty claim:

"You know what the thing is about Konerko? He doesn't make mistakes."

Wow. Quite a billing.

Nova pulled an AJ and had a solid outing in a losing effort, but since there have been questions around his value floating around, he probably had the same relief AJ had, though bittersweet.

GGBG homered AGAIN (so did Cano), and this is just hysterical to me, since the Yanks have had 8 bombs in the last 4 games, and 2 of them have been off the bat of someone who weighs as much as a medicine ball.

Also, it should be noted that if we're gonna talk about people not making mistakes, let's bring up the fact the Yanks only saw 115 pitches, compared the 148 seen by the Southsiders. And by not making mistakes, I mean let's not make this mistake again. Is it me, or do the Yanks panic after a loss and do the whole Kobe Bryant, "F this noise, Ima win the game myself" thing where they all try to go yard?

I'm fine with that most of the time. Since most of the time, it works.

Just not last night.

Well, there's always tonight! Which we will win with Allergy on the mound!

Oh speaking of weirdnesses on the mound, can we go ahead and bring up this one, since Hughes seems to be going the way of the Rachel haircut?

My sister was just in my office, and we were both frantically rambling about bananas today has been at work. I've also been frantically rambling about how "I am very irritable today for some reason. Not when I interact with other people. I'm fine then. But when left to my own devices, I'm about to slam my computer against the wall if my bullets on powerpoint won't align."

And I realized why!

On Sunday, on my way to Church, I took off my Yankee bracelet because it irritates my mom to no end (with reason, I suppose, since it's beyond ratty), and now I'm attributing this to my chemical imbalance.

Whatever, I could just be cranky about the loss last night.

"Yeah, I was gonna try to watch the game with Strange last night after softball, but he had work to do. Probably better I didn't, I guess."

My sister responds: "Yeah, well AJ's happy though."

"Huh?"

"Yeah, in the postgame, when everyone else is like, 'you want a win, you don't get it, so you're disappointed,' he's like, 'WELL I WAS GREAT!""

So today, when dealing with the loss of my Yankee bracelet (if only temporarily), I'm going to channel go old psychopath AJ, and recall his words of optimism in the face of defeat.

“I’m making a step, I’m not going to rear back and try and throw as hard as I can anymore,” Burnett said. “I’m going to try and make a pitch — you know, will myself through it — and that’s what I do.”

That's what I do. Will myself through it. Weirdo.

So last night, someone named Phillip Humber, who has as many teams to his career as I have Yankee hats on my door, held the Yanks to 1 hit last night. Good for him. He's the kind of story my dad likes, sort of, since he turned down the Yanks originally in 2001 to go back to school.

The Chisox won for only the 2nd time in 12 games, which means the Yanks are kind of like becoming what the Pirates were a few years ago: a soup kitchen. I remember in 2008 or 09, Pittsburgh was basically just handing out their best players to whomever was interested. And now, the Yanks are basically doing the same thing with wins.

It's very charitable of them. Well, it would be, anyway, if they were doing it on purpose and not just inexplicably providing cellar-dwellers with Ws (cough...Red Sux...cough).

The Yanks were hitless until the 7th inning, so you can imagine how happy we all were watching this transpire. The thing is, it was only a 1-0 game at that point, so the fact we were hitless wasn't reallllly upsetting me too much, you know? If it was 8-0, then fine, that means the big story of the game is the no-hitter. A 1-0 game just means that it's a nice little pitching duel that could go either way.

Unfortunately it went the way of the bad guys.

ARod, of course, put the tick of relief on the board for us, which brought on a cascade of cheers that I'm sure made him smile, even though it was just for a hit.

All in all, it was a pretty quiet game, unless you're Ozzie Guillen and Phillip Humber.

"Phil's got great stuff and he can do it, "Pierzynski said. "He's just got to throw strikes and believe in himself."

Thanks, Crazy AJ #2. (How does one generally distinguish between Burnett and Pierasdkasd [sic]?) Catcher AJ and Pitcher AJ is just kind of meh.

(Yeah, I'm mildly obsessed with the Onion's own aggressive obsession with AJ.)So, yeah, moving on. The Southsiders scored again in the 9th, Konerko drives in an "insurance run" (God, I hate that term), and the Yanks lose 2-0.

Grandy, Arod, and Chavez are the only hits for the Yanks (2/3 of those folks are on team Las Crisis Nerviosas, but as usual, I'd prefer a Yankee win over a LCN one.)

Humber only walked 2 and hit Swish with a pitch. Really nice work from him. Will there be a repeat performance in his future? He looked pretty good to me. I suppose that, yes, the Yanks historically are useless against a pitcher they've never seen before, but I don't know.

(I know I've said this before, but do the Yanks invest any of there BULTIBILLION dollar budget (see what I did there, payroll obsessors?) to a video analyst? Whatever happened to Charles Worskfkjwe whatever his last name is? Wonsowicz. That's it.)

So there's that. AJ gives up 3 hits, 2 BBs (?? wow), 1 run, and whiffs 2. Soriano is less than impressive, gives up another run, but does it matter? As my buddy Russo wisely admonishes whenever I start getting all alarmist, "Unless the Yankees score a run, we're not winning this one anyway."

True story.

I'll leave you all with this: my mom (who I've mentioned in my last post has been having some spamming issues) sends me an email in the middle of the night, which was the last straw, and I begged her this morning to get rid of her AOL account because I can't take the spamming anymore.

Then she tells me it's not spam, that she meant to email me this craigslist post to me:

Furnished bedroom available in spacious 2 1/2 bedroom apartment. Doorman, high floor, city and sunset views, sunny, etc. Washer, dryer and dishwasher in the apartment. The apartment has good heat, is quiet for sleeping, has good air-conditioning, high speed internet and a spare computer for the roommate's use. It's an elevator building and there is a health club in the building. The room is about 200 sq. ft., has a double bed, dresser, desk, walk in closet and a window with a nice view. I'm looking for a female roommate who will occasionally not wear clothes when I ask in exchange for free rent. No sex whatsoever required. Otherwise the rent is $780/month, everything included.

Bleecker St. at Broadway (google map) (yahoo map)

A note of warning would have been appreciated. My heart stopped when I got to the bottom of the post and for a split second I thought my mom was offering this up to me as a suggestion, rather than a marvel at the degree of sleaze in some people in this city.

(Of course, I then received the expository follow-up email from my mom: "is this the most unbelievable thing in the world. There are such sickos out there!!!")

So Mariano Rivera blows the save again but unlike the game against the Jays, this time the Yanks prevail in eggstra innings. Yep. Eggstra. Because it was Easter. If I wasn't Catholic, I'd probably make some comment about how they were dead but then rose again to win it. However, I'm Catholic, and hence will refrain from such rhetoric.

As me and my family are sitting together for Easter dinner ("leg of lamp" as I called it), we're keeping one eye on the tv the living room (sometimes 2 eyes even), and man it was getting exciting. First Mo blows the save..

Wait, no, let me back up even more.

We're watching the game at it's 2-0 within seconds. Actually, to be honest, it felt like it should have been 234-0 based on how much they were pounding the ball the whole game. But no, it stays 2-0 for a while. Something kind of Grandish homered early, then Arod brings in another run to make it 3-0. Then I decide it would be a good time to try to help fix my mom's computer, since at least 4 times a week her aol account sends me valuable spam links on how to buy Viagra.

This, of course, doesn't bother me so much, but it bothers 1.) her because her hijacked email is sending it to her old coworkers and it bothers 2.) my sister, who works on the Viagra account and always ends up opening these links thinking they're actually relevant and not, in fact, viruses.

So I try to hack into her mainframe etc aka play around on the Registry files (I have zero idea what I'm doing, to be sure) and it turns out, neither does Justin Chamberlain, all 394,921 pounds of him, because the next time I look up at the tv, it's 3-2 and we're bringing in Mo to stop the bleeding.

But instead, he contributes to the bleeding (after DRob doesn't help, but he has some latitude on account of how well he had been playing). The O's end up tying the game and (!!!!) almost winning it until Swish zips one into Cano who throws out the winning run at the plate. PHEWWWWW.

It ALMOST didn't look like a well-called call, and I almost felt bad, because as much as I want to win, I'm not crazy about being on the positive end of a blown call (especially as a Yankee fan since for some reason everyone thinks the Yanks have the edge in life because it's just HANDED to them on a silver platter. Not true. They have the edge because they're better than everyone else.)

Then basically this happens:

Sort of. Jeter gets called out at the plate in the top of the 10th, with a bullet throw from Jones that gets to Wieters and upon closer inspection, yeah Jeter was out. Both plays at the plate, (bottom 9th and top of 10th) were eggstremely odd because both Wieters and Martin just looked really confused. Like girls who catch in recreational softball. The ball rarely ends up going to them and when it does, they're just completely baffled by everything.

The Yanks cobble together relief pitchers (for no reason, really, since Sweaty Freddy had been pitching excellently!) It's a 3-0 game and Girardi does that overmanaging thing which I never really like to call him out on but I will here because, well, he did. Why bring in Justin for the sake of bringing in Justin for Chrissake??

Actually, it was Easter. Maybe it was, in fact, for Christ's sake. Doing the nice thing.

GGBG saved the game for Mo, even though Mo did blow the save, with a ridiculous catch that my dad said he made because "He heard Kris saying, 'Gardner doesn't need to be a good bat, he's good for one thing only and that's his speed.' You know, people on tv can hear you. He was just proving to Kris that he's good for other things."

Well, there you have it. I've been so misinformed. And trust me, if my Dad says it, it's true.

The Yanks win 6-3 after a 40 minute rain delay, which allowed all us NYers just enough time to see the other remaining NY team (Knickerbockers) get swept. The 11th inning resumes just as we're walking across the street to my Godmother's place for coffee and dessert. Here's how that played out (the game, not the coffee):

RMart reached on infield single to shortstop, Chavez to second, Robbie scored (ps he apparently hates being called Robbie, according to my sis). Jeter reached on infield single to third, Chavez scored (ps I still have no idea where this Chavez guy came from). Jeter to second on throwing error by Mark Reyonds. Something kind of Grandish reached on infield single to second, RMart scored.

Hannibal Lector said that. I definitely used that once, years ago, when I was giving a presentation on copywriting. It was my first significant client presentation, a big conference room of people from Forest Pharmaceuticals, and I explained that consistency in branding is key because, as Hannibal Lector said, "we covet what we see every day."

In retrospect, I might have been better off using that line from my old standby, Oscar Wilde: “It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances.”

That said, I am pleased to announce the partnership with BuildASign.com, who has created a host of CYC-branded goods!

It started a week or so ago, when I received an email from Megan at BuildASign.com (and for what it's worth, she just could not have been nicer and more helpful!), saying that she would happy to provide any kind of branded material from her site.

BuildASign makes pretty much everything and anything you could ever want in terms of a Stuff You Can Put A Picture/Name/Logo On:

Anyways, if you would like one of these CYC bumper stickers (thank you again to Megan at BuildASign!!!), lemme know, and I'll send one along! And of course, I can offer nothing but my highest recommendations of that site, if you ever have any other kind of insignia need.

Welcome onboard, BaS! I can't tell you how much I appreciate the ridicu-cool CYC gear! :)

What a great game! A beautiful day in Camden Yards (which I've still never been to, believe it or not), CC gets his first win (believe it or not), and ARod goes deep to drive in a salami. (Didn't he do something to that effect a few Easters ago, too?)

Oh, yeah I was at that game!

In Easter gear and all. Actually, it was the day before Easter. April 7, 2007. Just like this salami was.

It was his 22nd career slam, pushing him past WoManRam, and into second place on the career list behind only the Iron Horse (23).

I've said it before, I'll say it again. When all is said and done, Alex Rodriguez will be the best baseball player that ever lived.

And speaking of THE BEST, you know who's doing good in terms of homeruns? THE NEW YORK YANKEES.

They've already logged 35 long balls, by far the most in the league (the next highest is Texas with 27, so I guess "by far" may be a little bit of an exaggeration? Whatever.)

The Yanks pretty much ran away with the game for most of the game. The ONLY time they even came close to losing ground was when Adam Jones hit a 3 run shot in the the 7th to score Lee and Markakis, making the score 6-3.

HOWEVAH, the Yanks responded with Jorge's 2-run shot in the 8th, followed immediately by R-Mart's 2nd bomb of the day. Soon thereafter, the Yanks load up the bases against Accardo, and that's why Arod is batting clean up.

#13 has this way of returning to the lineup against Baltimore and just basically foregoing any kind of "weening" himself into the game.

For example:

Ahh, that was another good one. (Notice the assclowns in the Camden bleachers with the needle posters? Ha. Morons.)

To paraphrase the famous owner of the Yanks from the 20s, Jacob Ruppert, “a great day at the ballpark is when we get out to a 10-0 lead and then slowly pull away.”

But since yesterday was just a total run hemorrhage, GGBG went ahead and added to the bleeding. So confusing. It was a 96mph fastball, though, so I guess little $11 just basically had to touch the ball to put it over the short porch. Which is what happened. And the dugout goes wild, and they're laughing, and you remember how awesome it is to be a Yankee fan.

(Which is a sentiment that is really driven home lately, in the presence of pretty much every NY sports team that isn't the Yankees. Not good showing, NY Rangers. Same to you, NY Knicks. And NY Mets...sigh. Whatever.)

So the Yanktank wins 15-3 and becomes the last team to score at least 4 runs in an inning. Yeah, that's right. The team with the best record in the AL, and the most dings in the whole league, had yet to score 4 runs in an inning until yesterday. Well, slow and steady etc etc, no?

Oh, and just to keep things interesting, there was a completely innocuous brush back in the 9th which the media is desperately trying to blow out into a legit story.

After Rupe hit Martin in the back with a pitch in the ninth, Gardner hit his first homer of the season.Rupe said the brushback pitch was completely accidental."I had no intent to hit him. I looked at the video and it didn't look good," the pitcher said. "But there's no way that I would intentionally go at somebody's head or go way up there. I know how to hit a guy when the situation calls for it and that wasn't it. No, I wouldn't do it."

Oh, also, me and my Dad tried to make NYY Easter eggs, but they ended up looking more like someone was trying to claw it's way out of a robin's egg. Soo..no posting of those pics. Though soon there will be pics courtesy of our newest sponsor! Stay tuned...

TORONTO -- Bartolo Colon put his best foot forward in his first start with the New York Yankees, and wanted something to remember the occasion.

Colon pitched into the seventh inning to earn his first win in two years and the Yankees beat the Toronto Blue Jays 6-2 on Wednesday night.

"It's very special for me," Colon said through a translator. "The shoes that I wore today, I'm going to keep them as a memory."

Ha, that's pretty hilarious. My sister and I like to commemorate big events with a new pair of shoes (I think she actually just implemented this tradition as a means of getting me to don footwear beyond Sambas). It's just funny that a big leaguer is doing this. So weird, in fact, that I'm wondering if his translator misheard him say "zafato" which would mean something to the effect of "The craziness of today, I'm going to keep it as a memory."

I'd like to assume that's what he meant, instead of shoes.

So, yeah, Colon. CC aka Tubbo.com is FAT. Colon, however, is allergic. That's the only explanation I can come up with to explain why his face looks fatter than Round Boy. Seriously, he looks like how I did my last day of vacation. I'm like fatally allergic to some spice in Indian and Thai and Mexican food, it could make me go into anaphylactic shock if I eat even a moderate amount of it. But I guess I just had a pinch of it or something, since I woke up like this:(Yeah, I know. I don't why I'm still single either.)

Ok, now compare to this:The resemblance is nothing short of uncanny.

That said, Something Sort of Grandish homered AGAIN. Last year he had 24 homeruns all season. This year he has around 89 so far. No complaints here, since he's a starter on fantasy roster Las Crisis Nerviosas (also, a starter for the Yankees, so..double bonus.)

The Yanks already have 30 dings and the first month of baseball hasn't even finished yet.

The Pitching Machines were stellar last night, not only was the Allergy in top notch form (7Ks, 2BBs, 2 runs in little over 6IP), but the relief that we cobbled together was equally solid. D-Rob again was brilliant, Logan was unnoticeable which is pretty much what I hope to get out of him, and Lance Pendleton...well, nothing he can do can escape the eclipse of how f'n awesome his name is. He sounds like he should be writing scrolls with feather pens, and saying words like "whilst" and "shant." Instead, he pitches (1 hit, 1 BB, 0 runs.) Soriano gets the save.

The Jays tried to stage some sort of rally, but the magic from the game prior wasn't there. They got 1 back in the 7th, but then screwed it up. They have 1 out with runners on 1st and 2nd. Snider ropes one to the outfield (and sadly, refrains from snapping his bat in exuberance). Encarnacion stops at 3rd (good move). Arenciba rounds 2nd (bad move) and he's tagged out by Tex (who went 3-5 on the day, in other news.)

That was some bizarro hybrid of Mets-Anaheim-esque decision making. But I'll take it.

Yanks win 6-2, retain the best record in the AL East (though the Injuns have the best in the league?? Confusing. Also, temporary). And while all this is going on, the Rangers (of the NHL persuasion) are busy squandering a 3-0 lead to Ovechkin et al in a 2OT playoff loss.

Supernova got tagged with the loss, but we all know who screwed this up for the Yankees. You know how there's some people you REALLY don't want to lose a game to? Like you really don't want Manny Ramirez to take you deep in the bottom of the 9th at Fenway? Or strike out looking against Papelbon? (Fortunately, neither of these are possible anymore..)

Similarly, I HATE watching Mo get in trouble. He looks so sad and helpless the few times it actually happens. He doesn't stomp his feet or pound his glove or get angry. Or, if he does, it's in private. All we see is the best closer in baseball, and one of the classiest guys in the game, look sullen and confused.

The weird part about this was that none of us thought THIS was going to be the problem. Kind of like when I took my driving test and I practiced parallel parking for WEEKS beforehand. And then I nailed it. No smoother parallel parking job had ever been executed in the history of life. So you can imagine my surprise when I'm told I failed.

Not only did I fail, but I apparently had broken nearly every traffic law known to mankind in the process. Speeding, wrong way in 1-way street, ran a stop sign, etc. The instructor's exact words were, "I actually feared for my life while in a car with you."

Ok, a simple "F" would have sufficed. The melodrama wasn't necessary.

Similarly, the bases loaded situation in the 6th that was cruelly handed over to Robertson was like the parallel parking nightmare.

AJ Burnett left after walking Nix to load the bases, but Robertson fanned Escobar and Snider to escape the jam.

Speaking of melodrama, Snider snaps his bat over his thigh like it's a toothpick, then hurled the pieces into the dirt in cinematic fashion. I love it when players break bats. It's so badass. Unfortunately, it usually happens after they strike out or pop up. Which is the opposite of badass.

Add this to my list of things I want to see happen in a game sometime: player snapping bat over his thigh after he goes yard.

The game was nip and tuck for a while, the runs started with Bautista's solo shot. (Speaking of Bautista, check out this nutso's website and Youtube page. I use nutso in the most affectionate way possible, of course. I'm bordering on mad she lives in Canada so I can't hang out with her.)

The game broke open (as much as it would, anyway) with the "TEXT MESSAGE" 2-run ding. Things got shady in the 6th, as I mentioned, and if I didn't like AJ (but I do), I'd make some Knicks comparison here, about the longevity of his effectiveness in games. Moving on..

Then all us Yankee fans start cheering because the game's over, no? Mariano Rivera's coming in. Done and done. You know how good a closer is when you're not even scared of jinxing it by saying things like, "What's the worst that could happen?" etc.

Well, I guess we all learned an important lesson about jinxes last night.

I don't even know what happened. Basically, Mo imploded.

The rally snapped Rivera's streak of 17 1/3 scoreless innings in April, a run that stretched back to April 30, 2009.

"That's the thing about Mo, he's not perfect but he's close to it," Teixeira said.

That's true. He is. And the thing about baseball is, we play again today. I already forgot about the extra innings walkoff. Sort of.

So that's not even remotely the worst one that could sponsor a stadium.

My sister was talking to me yesterday about how cool it is that Yankee Stadium will be the only stadium (eventually) without a sponsorship name attached to it. (Yeah, yeah. Fenway. But come on, how long is that thing really gonna exist before it just starts disintegrating like Bitch Stewie?)

So that led us to a conversation about the branded plays, like the Lojack "Caught Stealing" or Johnny Walker base on balls, etc.

Which became a fun game on Sunday, to make up more branded plays. Any ideas?

As you may have noticed, I've been on indefinite blogging leave, thanks to--what else--the demands of gainful employment. Two years ago, I was able to get home from work at midnight, watch the dvr-ed game, and post the recap before 6am...

The problems arise when I'm not getting home from work til 4:30am, and then I'm faced with the painful realization that the old cliched complaint of "not having enough hours in the day"--a whine that I've always found particularly annoying--may actually ring true.

So anyways, things have let up a little on the office front, which is good for both blogging purposes and also for health purposes, the latter of which may not even be as important, but semantics.

So the Yankees are the best team in the AL East and the Sux are the worst. The good news is that the fact they're in first means the alarmists are kind of tempered for now, but the bad news is that the alarmists may have a valid concern in the whole Phil Hughes thing, who's been moved to the DL with something called "dead arm" which is as legitimate an affliction as whatever the Twins originally put Mauer on the DL for.

("Bilateral leg weakness disease"? Seriously, what would have happened if Mauer ended up going under the knife to treat this? "Ohh, hmpf. Well everything looks fine..? Maybe it's the flu.")

Anyways, so I'm back, and it's an exciting time to be a New York sports fan. Yankees on top. Rangers with a big win yesterday, Knicks...well, almost with a big win yesterday....

Almost a sweep. But hey, I'll take it. I don't know what it is about the Detroit-Yanks matchup that always seems to bring out the long-ball in everyone. Here's how the weekend played out:

Saturday's game was on Fox which means we had to listen to Joe Buck and McCarver talk about ferris wheels and carousels for a good 15 minutes, and then subsequently fumble around like a drunk freshman looking for her dorm keys at 4am, in an effort to find some distant connection to how any of this is at all relevant.

Mark Teixeira is good in the first weekend of the season, which is as confusing as seeing Steve Carrell in a dramatic villain's role. He homered (Tex, not Michael Scott) in each of his first 3 games. The only other Yankee to HR in each of the first 3 games of the season was Dave Winfield in 1983. So far, he's logged 7 ribbies, and is batting approximately .329 points higher than his average early season.

The thing about Tex playing so well is that it's probably the ONLY time in his career that a pitcher (such as Brad Penny) cannot yell at him "YOU F'ING SUCK" right after he walks him. However, this is exactly what he did say, taking a page right out of every Red Sux fan's book of logic.

The countdown to Jeter's 3000th hit continues with predictable overdone-ness. As my sister said, "Have you noticed how in the last 2 years every time they interview Jeter there's an increasing edge to his voice? Like he used to be Mr. Media and all smiles, and it's progressed into this undertone of 'Ok, yeah, I'm just trying to win, this isn't rocket science.'"

Buck and McCarver DID make one particularly interesting comment. (I just threw up in my mouth, I can't believe I just wrote that.) They were talking about Miguel Cabrera giving interviews in Spanish (why is this an issue? What about the Japanese players who refuse to go near anything that resembles the English alphabet?), and Buck goes, "You know this would be a wholllle other story if it was Arod doing this."

AJ was good enough for the win on Saturday which is wayyyyy more than we can say about Hughes on Sunday. Maybe this should quiet the Up-In-Arms contingents about why AJ is the #2 starter instead of Hughes? Yeah, it's one game, but apparently there are bigger fish to fry, which is Hughes' complete lack of understanding re: why his fastball lost the fast part.

I hope beyond hope that this never becomes an Ollie Perez scenario. One of those pitchers who is good but forgets to have a stable psyche and then his talent becomes a paled version of its former self?? (Too early in the season for bad thoughts, I know. Someone just needs to tell that to Joel Sherman.)

Alright so the Yankees lose the first game of the season on about 2934 homeruns, and now the Twins come into town and AJ lines up the whipped cream.

The Yanks may be off to an auspicious start, but CYC of course has gotten a rather slow start off the block. Believe me when I say that my days of watching games on DVR at 3am are shortlived, on account of--if nothing else--my diminishing ability to function off 3 hours of sleep.

(I've been 30 years old for all of 2 days and already I'm getting imbued with all sorts of senior citizen limitations.)

Fortunately for me, the Yanks are off today (which is the 1st time in my life I've ever said that phrase. Wow.) But it gives me all of today to ruminate on the beauty of yesterday, the start of Yankee baseball, and of the pursuit for 28.

I've just recently been trying to get more Tweet-literate (I've learned that it's fruitless to try to take a stand against these things), and so I learned a lot about the game prior to watching it on DVR (something else I've also found completely fruitless is trying to avoid any form of communication in the interest of preserving the surprise of a dvr-ed game.)

I was at a client meeting from 12 til 7 last night, and I swear to God, these are the types of situations that really demonstrate how ridiculously long a way niceties go...I think just the fact they acknowledged that I was missing game was pretty cool--sacrifices aren't so bad when they're appreciated. Well played, client. Well played.

After the meeting was over and I'm looking at the barrage of "ONE DOWN!!!!" and "28 HE WE COME!!" etc texts/tweets/statuses/facsimilies/jet stream messages/smoke signals, I hear one of the clients on the phone asking if anyone taped the game.

I love finding out that work colleagues are real people, too. It's like how I always assumed my teachers in grade school did nothing except live in classrooms and bathe in chalk dust, and seeing one out in the food court or something was like mind-blowing.

"I'm just so happy the Yankees are back in my life," she tells me.

In an ideal world, I could see every Yankee game and never miss another Opening Day ever, but if I have to pay the rent and be responsible, then the next best thing to being around the Yankees...is being around Yankee fans.ANDDDDDD we're back. In bullets because that's what I do when I'm too excited about stuff and realize that any attempt at cohesive thought will be as pointless as the white crayon.

Something I hate about myself: the fact I use periods at the ends of bullets here and nowhere else.

Something I love about today: the Yankees are the best team in baseball.

The above sentiment can also be used on any given day in the history of the world, which is something I love about the Yankees.

Okay, relevant stuff:*

*Mostly.

This was the earliest day in Yankee history that the Yankees won at home. I like any superlative attached to the Yanks, to be clear, HOWEVAH I am hoping that this is the earliest it will EVER be. I DO plan on not missing Opening Day many more times in my tenure on earth, so I'd like to avoid sitting in GNH while the Super Bowl is going on. Which may be where it's headed. My old boss used to get frustrated because he tried to work around my sports fanaticism, but then said, "What the hell?? At any given time, there's some important sporting playoff or season opener or something going on. Soon there will be 300 days of the year where 4 sports are all in the playoffs at once."

And we can have Tex to blame for this, who connected off Verlander for a 3-run ding: "I've been petitioning the league to start in March for years. Finally they let us start in March because everybody knows my Aprils," Teixeira said. "It's great to start this way. ... Last year was awful, it was embarrassing." Ok fine, let's start on March 29. That's my limit though.

Mo's socks were confusing. First it made me sad because I thought, holy shit it's been so long since I watched baseball that I didn't even know Mo wore his socks like that. Then I googled it and was relieved. Then I looked at my own socks and realized they didn't match.

I was SO SO HAPPY to see Tubbo.com again! Although..can I still call him that?? He was so lithe I almost didn't recognize him. I mean, it was pretty obvious that he scraped off 20-30 lbs of love, put 'em in a little beach bucket and then deposited them on Joba's doorstep, because every time I see Joba he looks more and more like some strange parade float you'd see in the Jack Nicholson version of Batman. Well he was good yesterday though. No runs. Good.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: wherever the Yanks' DL is housed is definitely some kind of utopic bounty of panaceas. I rarely assume that someone just coming off the DL is going to be a little off (as I do with every other team) because with the Yanks, it's like they come back on the field and play as if they're college prospects scared of being passed over by a scout. Not only did Grandy take Verlander deep to break a 3-3 tie, but his fielding was superb.

The Tigers failed to homer for the first time at the new Yankee Stadium. Isn't that weird? Huh. Well, ok then. Who knows though, I started fact checking the Snapple bottles once for no reason and found a few blatantly false ones. (My sister: "Who cares? More importantly, who does that??"

Cabrera is still pretty good. He's one of those players I keep expecting to cool down and stop being so high up on fantasy rankings, but yeah he's good. 1 for 2, 2 runs, ribbie. But you know why I really like him? Throwback to something I wrote about him in 09:

The account goes on to note that Cabrera also was involved in an incident at the Townsend Hotel, a spot frequented by athletes and other sports professionals. It avers that Cabrera "got into an argument with a young man, telling him he was 'overweight and needed to work out.'"

I'm sorry, but that part is kind of funny. The idea of a baseball player being all cool and tough at a bar, and using playground retorts to comprise his vicious rhetoric: "Yeah, well, you're fat!"

What's even more ridiculous is the fact someone called the cops on him for this. No bar brawl. No physical violence. Someone took offense to this and called the police.

And they actually investigated? It sounds like the punch line of some "fat police" joke.

That'd be like if my boss asked me to put a report together and a month later, he asked why it was taking me so long, and I said because I was still testing out fonts.

Cano wasn't so hot. Cue the alarmists "he's on the decline!!!!" Guarantee it. Cano is so insanely good at baseball that he will keep getting better every. single. year. For a while. Still won't deter people from trying to pin him down as the "sleeper decliner of the year."

Everything already is so much better now that the Yankees are back home.

How I felt up until 1:05 yesterday:Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell. ~Edna St Vincent Millay